


pictures one through seven

by fightingtheblankpage



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Body Paint, Don't Eat Paint, Frottage, Future Fic, In a way, M/M, Marking, Overly Poetic Prose, Painting, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 23:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightingtheblankpage/pseuds/fightingtheblankpage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long, long swipe of blue — from Stiles’ collarbone, and over the canvas of his chest, and the Jackson-Pollock-moles on his stomach, and down the relief of his abdomen. The paint is warm from Derek’s fingers, and from how alive-work of art-burning Stiles’ skin is, and there is something in the patterns Derek draws with his hands, something hidden there, a map that he could— “Huh,” Stiles says, mocking (strained), “so this is you externalising your issues through painting?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	pictures one through seven

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt belongs to [Amy Rose](http://www.halesparkles.tumblr.com), who asked me for Sterek and painting.  
> The fic was born because [Nasti](http://www.halewolfed.tumblr.com) was very, very determined for it to happen. Very.  
> I was saved from this fic, and from my own writing, and from Derek, by my Beta, [Elizabeth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eak_a_mouse/pseuds/eak_a_mouse).  
> Thank you all!  
> Now, I have Sterek'd by accident, behold.

**_picture one_**  
  
Consider the following picture.  
  
In the woods stands the old Hale house, a collection of charred remains reaching towards the California-blue sky. The house is made out of things that aren’t there: spaces and cracks, open walls and busted windows. And in the morning, it’s made out of columns of light, piercing the inside of the house’s shell, pooling together in the once living room and flooding it with brightness.  
  
And at night, it's made out of blue shadows curling against the remaining walls and stretching over floors that smoothly turn to grass. To a werewolf's eyes, darkness doesn’t exist, not when there's a moon and stars to lend everything a silvery, blurry lining (as if they live in a different world, even if it happens to occupy the same space the human world does). A werewolf can dull their senses if they wish hard enough (sometimes they do), but can't make others see.  
  
Derek remembers a painting that used to hang on a wall that no longer exists (not many things do anymore), a diptych showing the same landscape copied twice. They had both shown a simple scene, a lake in late evening, but the one on the right was painted in colours that Derek had known, just like he’d see it. The one on the right had appeared dull and hazy next to it. Derek used to think that the darker, **_human_** version was somehow worse, missing something (human meant less to him), but he doesn't anymore.  
  
 ** _picture two_**  
  
Derek’s father wanted to teach Derek about art. Derek wasn’t good at it ‒ he’s always been more about practicality and less about imagination. He could copy reality to canvas, with his supernatural eye and hand, but there was never anything of him in what he painted, so he stopped trying. Or maybe his father stopped trying to convince him. The thought makes Derek oddly regretful. He misses things from his old life he had never fully enjoyed while he had them. This realisation, he knows now, means no longer being a child.  
  
Derek tries again. His fingers remember, and something else in him does, too. The smell of paint when he opens the small containers to sniff inside is more pleasant than it has any right to be, and Derek sets everything out in the not-room (There are just two walls, it's hardly a room. A courtyard to his castle?) slowly, deliberately, like an old ritual.  
  
It feels like one. Like it's not canvas he's preparing but an altar, and as the evening turns to night, Derek turns to his memories, looks inward instead of at what’s in front of him.  
  
(Consider the following picture.)  
  
Derek doesn’t paint. He can’t, he’s no good at it, he doesn’t even particularly want to. But he does set everything out like his father would, spreads out an array of colours and tools. A peculiar kind of feast in anticipation of a guest who won’t come. Derek takes it all in, like he expects the kingdom of his childhood to blossom around the canvas. A cloud of colour from a paint brush dropped in a jar of water.  
  
His paintings were always too precise, he thinks. Everything about him is like that, too sharp and controlled (which is ironic, because everything around Derek is a mess, and he feels like a mess, too). Hyperrealism ‒ there's a word he hasn't heard in a lifetime. A crossword puzzle word.  
  
His father’s word.  
  
 ** _picture three_**  
  
Against the thick shadows of the skeletal body of the house, Stiles is as much of an embodiment of abstraction as always. He doesn’t make much sense to Derek on the best of days, but at the same time he does, on the level that Derek wasn’t able to access when he was trying to learn how to paint.  
  
Derek doesn't turn around to look at Stiles, but it doesn't mean he's not aware of Stiles’ presence. The quiet steps, the rustle of clothes punctuated by even heartbeats, the soft breathing ‒ if Derek lets himself, they seep into his mind and rearrange it, push his thoughts down new routes.  
  
"This is new. I mean, aren't you supposed to paint in big, bright artsy lofts?" Stiles asks with mockery that Derek knows better than he does any other facet of any other person he’s known in his life.  It's the false kind, the ‘I may say something too honest otherwise’ kind. Sometimes ‒ more and more often ‒ Derek borrows it from Stiles to use as his own.  
  
He still doesn't acknowledge Stiles in words, but the tension in his shoulders he wasn’t aware of dissolves, and he’s able to breathe better – breathe Stiles in. If Derek's senses were a physical entity, they'd be stretching towards Stiles and wrapping around him.  
  
Stiles pushes things around on the floor where Derek spread out the paint, paint thinner, paintbrushes, and all his makeshift utensils. He picks some of them up, rearranging them in his own order. It seems to be a thing he does in Derek's life.  
  
"I always imagined there’d more painting involved in the, uh, painting," Stiles says. He stands up from where he was crouching and looks over Derek's shoulder. His chest is brushing Derek's back, and his breath fanning across Derek's cheek. Derek nods, silently pleased that Stiles disturbed him in whatever it is that Derek’s been doing. "Huh," Stiles says by way of further comment. "That's a lot of empty canvas you’ve got there."  
  
Derek nods again. Yes, it is. He lets himself get engrossed in Stiles' presence, too eager to be distracted in the first place. Stiles looks at the empty canvas from up close, like there’s anything to look at there, almost like he can see all the potential pictures. (Derek remembers that you're supposed to look at works of art from afar to appreciate the entirety of them.)  
  
Stiles’ eyes are a mixture of colours Derek picks apart in his head when he gets an occasion. **_Now_** seems like an occasion, so he does. He files the golden, brown, amber (and then again not at all, and then so many different colours) away and wonders if he could copy **_this_**. Finally, Stiles is satisfied that he looked at the canvas enough, and steps back. He shuffles his feet in the dust, knocks over one of the paint cans and dives to the floor to pick it up.  
  
 ** _picture four_**  
  
The paint is sea green, a rich, deep colour. Stiles’ fingers, where they aren’t covered in it, look lead white in the semi-darkness.  
  
Stiles raises his hand for Derek to inspect ‒ “The can was open, this **_sucks_** ” ‒ wriggles his fingers. The paint is thick, and it trickles lazily down to his wrist. Derek watches it, and the familiar lines of Stiles’ pale blue veins and raised sinews. “Kinda the same colour as your ridiculous eyes,” Stiles says.  
  
His eyes are bright with mischief when he reaches out to rub his thumb across Derek’s cheekbone. His fingers are warm, and familiar, but the paint is a chilly, wet glide. Not exactly unpleasant, though. Nothing can be when it’s accompanied by Stiles’ touch.  
  
“No,” Stiles decides. “Too dark.” He steps closer, peering at Derek with the same scrutiny he gave the empty canvas before. Derek tugs Stiles even closer by the hem of his shirt, runs his fingers over Stiles’ hips. There’s something exhilarating yet humbling about having Stiles’ undivided attention on him like that. Something that took Derek a lot of growing used to, something he has learnt to think he deserves.  
  
Stiles bows his head to kiss the place he stained with paint and drag his wet lips across Derek’s cheek. When he pulls back, there’s a smile across his face and a smudge of colour across his lower lip. It’s almost nothing, but then it’s the brand of his touch. Suddenly Derek’s heart is racing, and he wants to see Stiles stained with Derek’s hands all over him. It’s the primal need to mark just because he’s allowed to, the feeling of possibility you get when you’re looking at a blank canvas.  
  
 ** _picture five_**  
  
Derek wasn’t Stiles’ first kiss, nor was he the second.  
  
It doesn’t matter.  
  
Derek is alright with that ‒ he had all the other firsts. What bothers him more is that Stiles wasn’t his first, but this can’t be helped. All Derek knows is that he was Stiles’ third kiss, and every single one since then. He likes to think he’s going to be all the kisses from now on, too ‒ he will, if Stiles lets him.  
  
Kissing Stiles is, as always, something new. Not just because Derek can taste the mineral-like tinge of paint on Stiles’ lips, but because everything Stiles feels echoes in his kisses. Now, when Derek slides their lips together, Stiles is slow and lazy, no tension or hurry in his movements.

  
Derek likes him like that, when they have the time to enjoy each other’s presence, and don’t have to steal moments. Usually Stiles would start complaining about the lack of furniture ‒ or roof ‒ right about now, so Derek seizes the opportunity to slide his hands under Stiles’ shirt and up over Stiles’ flat stomach. Stiles hums his approval against Derek’s lips, pulls him closer with his arms wrapped around Derek’s neck. Derek shifts his hands to Stiles’ sides to trace patterns against the warm skin over Stiles’ hipbones.  
  
It’s good enough for Derek to lose himself, having Stiles here, being allowed to drag his teeth over Stiles’ jaw and suck the skin of Stiles’ neck into his mouth. Derek’s distantly aware that Stiles is probably raking his fingers through Derek’s hair to get paint all over it. It surprises him how much he doesn’t care.  
  
Nor does he care when they trip over the paint cans and the legs of the easel and go crashing to the floor. Stiles gives him a look, like he knows Derek could have stopped them from falling if he wanted to. Derek’s not so sure he could stop anything when it comes to Stiles.  
  
 ** _picture six_**  
  
Undressing Stiles, slowly and piece by piece, is Derek’s own ritual. He exposes expanses of pale skin: long arms and a toned chest, stomach dusted with dark hair, and strong legs. Derek pulls Stiles’ boxer briefs off, and leans back on his haunches to look (at all of Stiles at once ‒ like you’re supposed to look at a work of art).  
  
Stiles knows that Derek likes it most when Stiles is naked first, but he’s also impatient. It feels almost like an afterthought to Derek, Stiles peeling Derek’s clothes off, tugging at them and pulling them off of Derek impatiently.  
  
Stiles is human, so his skin ‒ all of it for Derek to see and taste ‒ is far from unblemished. There are little dots of moles, like dark paint dripping from a brush, and bold lines of scars that won’t heal. Derek prefers it this way, likes the stories he can read from all of it. They mean Stiles is brave, and loyal, and alive. Derek reads them with his fingers, and then with his tongue. Stiles squirms under him, but senses that Derek needs it like this, needs something known and safe and grounding, pulling him away from his memories and anchoring him in the now.  
  
“Don’t move,” Derek warns, low and almost pained to his own ears.  
  
He scratches his claw over Stiles’ nipple ‒ “Not so easy to keep still when you’re doing **_this_** ‒ Oh god, Derek” ‒ and then uses the same claw to pierce a randomly chosen can of paint. It spills slick and cold across Derek’s hand, drips over the floor ( ** _drip drip drip_** ) and over Stiles’ abdomen (“Oh shi‒ **_fuck_** ”).  
  
Derek chooses a scar, one that starts on the ball of Stiles’ arm and curls towards his elbow. He coats it in paint from his fingers, hides it away, colours Stiles’ skin red with it ‒ red like Stiles’ lips after a hard kiss, like the head of his straining cock. Like blood.  
  
It’s not right, not what Derek wants, so he opens another can, and another. He leaves impressions of his fingertips over Stiles’ beating heart ‒ black and stark. Wide pale green paths on the inside of Stiles’ thighs. Yellow marks on his neck, like fading bruises.  
  
Then, finally, something that feels more accurate. A long, long swipe of blue — from Stiles’ collarbone, and over the canvas of his chest, and the Jackson-Pollock-moles on his stomach, and down the relief of his abdomen. The paint is warm from Derek’s fingers, and from how alive-work of art-burning Stiles’ skin is, and there is something in the patterns Derek draws with his hands, something hidden there, a map that he could— “Huh,” Stiles says, mocking (strained), “so this is you externalising your issues through painting?”  
  
Derek doesn’t answer, just leans over Stiles to press their lips together again, taste the smile on Stiles’ lips like he can have it for his own if he learns its shape. When he pulls back, Stiles’ jaw is striped with blue, too. Derek would like to look for a colour to match all the flecks in Stiles’ eyes, maybe, but they’re swallowed almost whole by the black of his pupils.  
  
Stiles makes a whining, desperate sound. It feels like fire licking at Derek’s insides, but he tries to hold back just a little longer. His fingers dance down to the crease of Stiles’ thigh, leaving petal-like purple fingertips. The wiry hair at the base of Stiles’ cock’s clustered together with paint, but his dick is beading with pre-come and untouched.  
  
“Please,” Stiles say, urgently. His eyes are wide and otherworldly when Derek looks up, and Derek can keep himself in check, but he’s not all that good at telling Stiles ‘no’ in these moments. He braces himself on his forearm, presses them together forehead-chest-stomach, traps their cocks between their bodies. Impatiently, he wipes his free hand on his own side, tries to get rid of the paint.  
  
When Derek finally wraps his fingers around the both of them, he has to moan, let some of that coiling tension out at least through this. The feeling of Stiles so close is blinding white-good, red-hot, black-all consuming.  
  
Derek loves being buried deep inside Stiles, but he loves it like this, too. His back hiding Stiles away from the night and from the world outside, and his hand moving over both of them. They’re slick with pre-come, and Derek’s arm is trembling with the effort of keeping himself upright.  
  
He twists his wrist just so, almost mean in how it makes Stiles’ back arch, a perfect bow. Derek tries to keep his eyes open, his gaze jumping between Stiles’ face (open, a brilliant composition of pleasure and desperation) and their cocks trapped in the ring of Derek’s fingers. It’s difficult, too hard to control anything apart from his hand’s movements. Even breathing is too much, air harsh in his throat.  
  
Stiles comes quietly, even though he’s usually loud when they do this. His mouth flies open and he bares his throat for Derek to press his mouth to, like it’s too much to even make a sound. It’s only then that Derek lets his own eyes close, sees colours on the inside of his eyelids. His fingers are slipping through Stiles’ come now, and there’s come on both of them, and it’s messy, it’s beyond control, it’s **_theirs_**.  
  
It doesn’t take much more to push Derek over the edge. His vision whites out, and a groan punches out of him. His arm gives out finally and he falls half on top of Stiles, half in the puddle of paint mixed on the floor.  
  
 ** _picture seven_**  
  
Derek considers the following picture.  
  
Stiles is spread out on the floor, with his most content smile, the one that comes from the inside, from the part of Stiles where Derek lives.  It pushes up a corner of his full lips ‒ red from Derek’s kisses ‒ and exposes the sharp white of his teeth.  
  
He is vibrant, gorgeous, a work of art. There’s blush on his cheeks, his neck, dusting his chest.  
  
And then there’s the perfect tone of his skin, pale and dotted with moles, and crossed with scars. He’s covered in paint ‒ swirls, lines, entire pictures that appear and disappear in front of Derek, like when you look up at clouds and they start forming shapes.  
  
Derek slides his hand slowly through the mess of paint, his come, Stiles’ come, and Stiles cracks one eye open. An impression of Derek’s fingers, this one in dark blue, is dotting his temple. The drying paint must feel itchy, because Stiles scratches at it absently before dropping his hand back to the floor. The other eye opens, too, and the smile spreads wider.  
  
‘I made this,’ Derek thinks dazedly. If he doesn’t make anything else in his life, it’ll be fine.  
  
Stiles regains enough control over his body to scoot closer to Derek, and nuzzle his cheek into the vivid mess on Derek’s chest. “What are you thinking about?”  
  
‘You,’ Derek thinks.  
  
“Art,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> As usual, if you want to, you can find me on Tumblr.  
> Love,  
> [Monika](http://www.talktoyourcactus.tumblr.com)


End file.
